Now, doctors at Baylor University say a woman born without a uterus has delivered a baby after a successful transplant, the first time the surgery has worked outside of the Swedish hospital that pioneered the procedure.

The success marked another step forward for transplant surgery aimed at improving a person’s life, not just saving it.

The fact that the uterus transplant success in Sweden can be replicated is a promising sign for thousands of women who have been unable to conceive.

And doctors at Baylor have sought to expand the limits of the procedure, using donated uteri that didn’t come from family members and, in some cases, organs that came from cadavers.

“To make the field grow and expand and have the procedure come out to more women, it has to be reproduced,” said Liza Johannesson, a uterus transplant surgeon who left the Swedish team to join Baylor’s group, told the New York Times.

“It was a very exciting birth. I’ve seen so many births and delivered so many babies, but this was a very special one.”

Baylor’s clinical trial was designed to include 10 women. Eight, including the new mother, have received the transplants so far.

One recipient is pregnant, and two are trying to conceive. Four others had transplants that failed, and the organs had to be surgically removed.

The surgeries differ from other transplants in one major way: They’re not intended to be permanent. Instead, they give a woman enough time to conceive a child.

In vitro fertilised eggs are transferred to the woman’s womb, and after the baby is born, the uterus is removed via surgery.

That means the patient doesn’t have to spend a lifetime taking powerful drugs that suppress her immune system, which would put her at risk for dangerous long-term complications.

The university hasn’t released the names of the mother or the baby, saying they chose to remain anonymous.

While this most recent birth is a step forward, uterine transplantation surgery is still in its very early days, and doctors conceded that there had been setbacks, particularly with the earliest volunteers.

In February 2016, Lindsey McFarland became the first woman to receive a uterus transplant in the United States. The organ came from a dead donor and was implanted during a nine-hour surgery.

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